Understanding cross national difference in knowledge seeking behavioral model : a survival perspective

Abstract

Electronic Knowledge Repository (EKR) is one of the most commonly deployed knowledge management technologies, yet its success is hindered by employees’ underutilization and further complicated when implemented in the multinational context. To address these challenges, we propose a research model by conceptualizing employees’ knowledge seeking via EKR as a survival-centric behavior, identifying the technology acceptance model as the individual-level explanation for EKR use, and drawing on the thermal demands-resources theory for explaining cross national behavioral differences. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we tested the model with data from 1352 randomly sampled knowledge workers across 30 nations. The results reveal interesting cross national behavioral patterns. Specifically, thermal climates and national wealth at the macro-level interactively moderate individual-level relationships between perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness and between perceived usefulness and behavioral intention.